I’ve always been excited by using our knowledge of how our brains work to create better marketing, advertising, and sales strategies. That led me to write Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing (Wiley, 2011) as well as my blog Neuromarketing. I always emphasize practical applications, not theory. I’m the founder of Dooley Direct, a marketing consultancy, and I co-founded College Confidential, the leading college-bound website. That business was acquired by Hobsons, a unit of UK-based DMGT, where I served as VP Digital Marketing and continue in a consulting role. I’ve spent years in direct marketing as the co-founder of a successful catalog firm, and before that directed corporate planning for a Fortune 1000 company. You can learn more about me and my speaking at RogerDooley.com. Follow me on Twitter at @rogerdooley, or on Google Plus at Roger Dooley.

College Branding: The Tipping Point

There are nearly 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States. Somehow, almost all of these institutions have continued to attract enough students to stay in business year after year.

That’s about to change, and one of the key differences in who survives won’t be the academic output of the faculty or the amenities available to students. It will be a factor seemingly unrelated to the schools’ mission: branding.

Survival of… Everyone?

How do these thousands of schools stay in business? Most Americans would be hard-pressed to name more than a tiny fraction of them – big sports names, top academic institutions, and in-state and local colleges. The national brand schools tend to be popular choices for applicants, and they focus on attracting top students and selecting the most promising candidates from those who apply. Filling the seats isn’t an issue.

Some schools are specialty brands – not household names, but well-known in their niche. Like the big brands, they have no difficulty attracting applicants (say, Harvey Mudd for engineering). Similarly, some schools would be considered regional brands – popular in a particular state or geographic area, and drawing a surplus of applicants.

Local schools occupy a different niche. They may or may not have a distinct brand, but they appeal to the large segment of students who don’t want to (or can’t afford to) leave home to attend college. Often, the key criteria for a student selecting one of these are its short commute and modest admissions requirements.

Somehow, the whole thing seems to work – most students who want to attend college can find a spot, and most colleges keep their doors open.

This state of equilibrium has continued despite the fact that tuition and other expenses have increased unchecked for decades – there hasn’t been a year in the last thirty that college costs didn’t increase faster than consumer inflation. Easy loans with no metrics for repayment ability and baby-boom-echo demographics have sustained this equilibrium. An influx of international students, often capable of paying full tuition, has also kept demand high.

Between a Rock and a Rock

Change is coming to this market. While there are multiple issues of increasing importance to schools, two stand out as major game-changers.

Affordability. The cost of a traditional four-year residential undergraduate degree has finally hit the pain point for many families. Few have saved enough to pay the full cost, nor can most families support the cost from current income. To compound the problem, for many schools tuition increases have actually accelerated due to lower state subsidies, fewer donations, and paltry endowment returns. Loans can bridge the gap, but there is an increasing realization that not every college graduate will walk into a lucrative job to enable paying back loans while maintaining a semblance of normal life.

Declining Benefits. In addition to the ever-rising cost of a college education, the benefits of that education have become somewhat more elusive. The global financial crisis and ensuing reduction in economic activity created an unusually difficult market for new college graduates. Simply earning a degree no longer means a high probability of landing a reasonable job. Many newly minted grads have been forced to move back to their parents’ home or accept low-paying jobs that didn’t utilize their education.

While some politicians and educators seek to have ever more students earning college degrees, other pundits suggest that we may have too many college grads in the market already.

The effect of this combination is that families and nontraditional students are looking much more closely at how they spend their money. Simply getting a degree isn’t enough to justify big loans. More students are price shopping, and skipping “dream schools” for a more practical alternative. Some students are choosing alternate paths, like certificate programs or specialized vocational training, that takes less time and costs less but offers a higher probability of employment.

Signs of Change

A new report from Moody’s shows that colleges are beginning to feel the pinch. The Wall Street Journal quotes John Nelson, who oversaw the study, “It’s pretty clear that pricing power of colleges has reached an inflection point.” The WSJ notes, “Nearly half of the schools surveyed by Moody’s reported enrollment declines this fall.”

Education Technology. The real game-changer in the coming years will be alternate means of course delivery. One reason college tuition keep rising is that higher education is the one service industry that hasn’t found ways to improve productivity and cut costs. If anything, productivity has decreased as administrative ranks swell and faculty resist higher teaching loads. As long as the primary method of course delivery is a professor in a room with a small group of students, there’s little hope for major cost improvement.

The rise of MOOCs (massive open online courses) and other forms of electronic delivery offer a real opportunity to reduce costs, but also pose an enormous threat to institutions without a strong brand. One has to ask, why would a student select a course from a little-known school with a very average prof? If dozens of versions of a particular course are available, why not choose the best? An engineering class from MIT, or an economics course delivered by a U of Chicago Nobelist?

A further evolution could result in professors becoming their own brands. A brilliant lecturer who can translate dry course material into lively and engaging content might need to rely less on her association with a particular university.

Too Late for College Brand-Building?

Historically, college brands have taken decades, or even centuries, to develop – it’s no accident that many of the most prestigious universities in the U.S. can trace their origins to the eighteenth century. A college or university that wants to build its brand today can’t afford to take the organic approach that worked for Harvard and Yale.

In fact, TechCrunch recently posted the apocalyptic How California’s Online Education Pilot Will End College As We Know It, suggesting that CSU’s move to some online coursework is the death knell for much of traditional higher ed. In particular, one of the author’s predictions is that “a few Ivy League universities begin to control most of the online content.”

While I do think most of the predictions in the article will come to pass, this shift won’t happen overnight. The field of higher ed isn’t known for turning on a dime, and before MOOCs and similar programs can entirely displace classroom learning to earn a credible degree, there are many details to be worked out. The window of opportunity for building a college brand hasn’t closed yet, but it is surely closing quickly.

Two Branding Objectives First, the school’s brand must attract the necessary quantity and quality of students while still operating in the traditional college/university style. MOOCs and other disruptive influences may be coming, but colleges still have to operate as they have while managing this transition. To make this more challenging, they will have to compete for a somewhat pool of applicants, due to a combination of student demographics and cost pressures.

This means branding the in-person experience and differentiating it from competing institutions.

The second branding imperative is to begin building an identity that transcends the physical campus. As more courses are delivered electronically, some of the branding factors that set the school apart won’t work. The gorgeous campus, the mild climate, the hip urban environment a few steps away, etc. won’t matter a bit to the student thousands of miles away.

Differentiation or Death Sadly, all too many schools have branding messages that are interchangeable with hundreds of other schools. Happy students. Engaged profs. An emphasis on innovation. Taglines like “Creating Tomorrow’s Leaders.” As the market becomes more competitive, these messages won’t set a school apart. Each school needs to define what makes its brand different from other schools, and focus relentlessly on communicating that difference. (For more on differentiation, see Just Say NO to Bland College Branding and College Branding: Taglines – these articles date from a few years ago, but are still relevant.)

Living the Brand

The reason for weak branding messages usually isn’t incompetent marketers. Rather, the school itself – its president, board, key administrators, and faculty – have never defined a mission and accompanying strategy that clearly sets the school apart from other schools.

Brand building isn’t clever wordsmithing or artistic logo design. The entire institution needs to live the brand. If a college wants to be known for brilliant teaching, then that desire must permeate every aspect of its strategy. Faculty must be recruited and retained based primarily for their instructional, presentation, and mentoring skills. Evaluation must be constant and improvement must be continuous. A marketing plan that leads with, “Our profs are the best teachers on the planet,” when the faculty has a large contingent of tenured researchers who hate to teach, is doomed to fail.

The upside: Colleges and universities that build great brands will be far less constrained by physical limits than in the past. The number of hours profs can teach, the number of students that dorms can hold, and so on won’t restrain these successful schools from reaching an increasing number of students worldwide. The shifting landscape is a threat, but it’s also an opportunity.

What’s Next?

In a future post, I’ll explore some great and not-so-great examples of college branding. In the meantime, do you agree that higher ed is facing dramatic change, but there’s still time for institutions to position themselves for success? What brilliant higher ed branding efforts have you seen lately? (Two of my favorites: Columbia University in the City of New York and Columbia College of Chicago, as I described in College Branding.) Conversely, have you seen higher ed brand messages that fail to move the needle? Leave your thoughts in a comment!

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Roger, this was a FANTASTIC article. I work in higher ed marketing and really appreciate your stance that it is not JUST the marketer’s job, but buy-in is needed from the entire operation because, indeed, we have to live up to the standards we’re setting; we can SAY whatever we want, but we have to be truthful. I attend some fantastic high ed web conferences and read some really great blog posts from some awesome, innovative people in the industry. And I think I enjoy learning and sharing with my peers so much because there is a gap in what is covered in traditional higher ed pubs. What I mean, is that when it comes to “official industry publications” which I won’t name here, they often are not very up-to-date or current with the latest and greatest in higher ed marketing (of if they do an article about, say Twitter, there are slews of sarcastic comments from people who do not accept these mediums and make light of them). I think your perspective here is so relevant because you are treating what we do like a business, which, after all, it is! Anyone in higher ed that is not reading the like LINK from HighEdWeb, edUniverse, tuning into Higher Ed Live, attending events like High Ed Web or just chattering on Twitter following hashtags like #highered, is sorely missing out on seeing what innovation in higher ed marketing is happening. Since you asked for examples, too, I’d like to share something really cool we’re doing with our acceptance packets at Elizabethtown College. Not only did we redesign our packet a few years ago – it’s not a letter – it’s an EXPERIENCE! – but we also invited students to “share their moment” on social media. You can see a Storify story of what we’ve collected so far: http://bit.ly/UA6C96. This packet also won an award; we’re really proud of it. Thanks again for this article. I’ve shared it with some colleagues. @donnatalarico

Thanks, Donna. The need to live the brand is true for corporations, too, though many don’t realize it. Imagine the CEO of United Airlines telling his CMO, “Our customers say our service sucks. You need to change their opinion,” but not actually improving service.

Well, I will agree with Donna, your article was extremely educational, informative and you covered with every detail the topic.However, as you have stated in your article, there are too many inhibitors for someone to decide to study at some of the top universities or colleges. Personally, I consider that the two most important reasons are the economic issue and the distance from home. As precious a degree from an accredited and famous college will be, the more it will be the sacrifice for a family that cannot afford the tuition fees and the living expenses of the student. In addition, honestly I believe that children whose parents cannot afford that, but they will deprived, in order their child to study to a famous college, the least they could do is to respect and be grateful for the rest of their life.

Actually, PlagTracker, the most “famous” colleges are often affordable for those without means – they offer no-loan aid packages based on need. That’s a tiny, tiny fraction of the total, though, and families who are middle class may still have to pay a big share of the cost.

Enjoyed the article. I’ve worked in the sector, mostly with business schools, for about 10 years and much of what you say rings true. When speaking on the subject at conferences I often suggest people read the book ‘Different’ by Youngme Moon which seems to capture much of the same message. There’s a good YouTube video about the book at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26PVrm4iLA0

The big problem, Andrew, is that all too often academics find the concept of marketing unappealing. Perhaps some advertising to attract qualified applicants is OK, but the idea of differentiating the institution from others and setting strategic policies in action is a different story. That’s not true everywhere, of course, but sometimes even a visionary president is hampered by balky faculty more interested in their own research than moving the institution forward.

An obstacle I see in most edu websites is lack of central direction or leadership. Schools and departments create and maintain their own sites completely separately. So if a university has 300 schools/departments/divisions, there are 300 different websites.

While this approach may satisfy a checklist of available information or requirements, it certainly does not serve the customer well. A website that is consistent, navigable and allows users to do something important to them would be a tremendous competitive advantage.

University presidents need to make the web autonomous, separate from marketing or IT. Given that the university’s academic and business functions rely on the web, (HR, admissions, purchasing, safety, etc) I believe this conversation is warranted.